None of the other guests at the rooftop party have a response for you, and soon, the more immediate concern of impressing your date by not dancing like an idiot or spilling anything on yourself drives it from your mind. It’s not often you get invited to these kinds of things, and you’re determined to make a good showing.

Someone shrieks. You look up, mouth open, to see a man descending to the rooftop terrace by parachute. The music stops. The only sound is the hushed fluttering of his chute, and the moist slurp as his heavy boots hit the pool of jell-o. Gently, the fabric settles into the quivering dessert behind him and he back-strokes to the edge of the pool. He pulls himself to his feet, face hidden in shadow. The crowd is hushed, reverent; the pool an otherworldly green in the flashing stage lights. Slowly, deliberately, he begins to dance.

“I had a dream,” he says, breaking the silence, arms and legs trembling in the still night air. He looks around him, meeting the eyes of every guest, one by one. His voice is strong and resonant:

“Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, we will make that dream a jiggly, wiggly reality.”

A roar of applause shakes the rooftop, and you are caught up in the crush as all of the guests are swept into the pool. You can feel the thud of the bass as it drowns out your heartbeat and pulses through the jell-o. Your vision fades, and you merge with the throbbing mass of sugary humanity; a single, delicious consciousness.

The Goods:

Linen Cardigan - Uniqlo
T-shirt - Uniqlo
Pants - Lanvin
Boots - A1923

You seem to balance a professional life with a non-traditional wardrobe very successfully. Is clothing - and streetwear in particular - a hobby that spills over into the office, or do you find yourself keeping work and play separate? Is there any overlap there?

There is some overlap. I often add a streetwear element to traditional office wear, like a slim suit with sleek boots or a long coat with a high collar. Occasionally I go with standard streetwear, such as a brown leather moto or a varsity with jeans and boots. Most people say they like it (except for the guy who says I dress like Lyle Lovett). I suspect most people have more latitude than they realize to wear something interesting to work.

I leave the edgier stuff for off-duty hours, including the waxed jeans, black leathers, high-tops, boot tucks and the blazer/t-shirt looks. I go to a lot of arts events, and the funkier looks fit in well there...I think. I take some risks now and then, maybe because I have a sort of warped sense of humor and have always been attracted to the unusual. Sometimes I stand out a bit, but I don't mind.

You’re doing your best to juggle your newly-acquired collection of ice cream pints and Red Box rom-coms when you first notice the guy in stripes. You could swear he tries to catch your eye, but you jam your headphones into your ears, feeling strangely-conscious in your favorite grey hoodie. As you walk home, even the sweet crooning of Enya cannot entirely put him out of your mind, and you cannot help but think that a night alone on the sofa with only Messrs. Ben and Jerry for company seems less romantic than it used to. Five minutes later, still apprehensive, you look over your shoulder and see the same man gliding after you in a billow of cloth.

It’s just a coincidence, you tell yourself. You turn the corner a block early, just in case, and to your horror you can hear his boots striking the concrete behind you. Your paunchy, be-sneakered shuffle suddenly seems…inelegant. You feel that you have to do something to keep him away from you, that you must preserve your pristinely uneventful existence. Unable to take it any longer, you stop and turn towards him, torn between fight and flight. He speaks before you can decide, and extends a single jeweled hand to you with languorous grace.

“Dude, you forgot your wallet.”

You reach out your hand and grasp it. It is a brown, coarse, ugly thing.

“Where,” you say, your world crumbling around you, “where can I find a cardigan like that?”

Over the past year, we've seen you turn away from loud prints and in-your face silhouettes to a more subdued look that is, nonetheless, very distinctive. What has changed?

I can actually remember the day it happened. It was June 13th, 2011. I was going to a Japanese fashion meet-up and I wore something pretty typical of myself – a black snake print suit and a jacquard shirt – and I felt incredibly uncomfortable in it. Like I was wearing someone else's skin. I started rethinking things after getting home that day.

Of course, the why is likely more interesting than the how, and I suspect it's due to the deep-dive I took into Japanese fashion due to the establishment of Harajuju. Discovering Kiryuyrik was a turning point for me – it showed that it was possible to have an aesthetic that spoke to my sense of glamour without being so absurdly obvious and – frankly – tacky about it. I've also made friends with a lot of people working in fashion and retail in Japan, and their insight has helped me greatly.

And finally, I think part of it is due to the inevitable evolution of one's style. I think it's only normal that as I get older, I'm able to appreciate simplicity and attention to detail a lot more. It's easy to forget that I started posting on Styleforum when I was just 17 years old. The atmosphere here has become much more nurturing to a wider variety of aesthetics over the past few years, and I'm really happy to have been able to grow here.

The relative merits of whoppers and bacon cheeseburgers long forgotten, you stare open-mouthed at the man in the long linen coat.

“And so I left,” he tells you, “to seek my fortune beyond the Wall.”

You gulp. “Why?” you ask, softly. “You were the pride of your people, even as a young man! They needed you! Looked up to you!”

“I felt incomplete,” he continues, “restless. I had an ache in my bones. I craved the horizon, dreamed of leaving my village, my farm, my shattered life. I yearned to explore the world beyond the Wall at the edge of the dunes. Despite everything I had achieved, deep in my heart of hearts I knew that I was still a child. I conquered the desert, conquered my fears, conquered death many times over…but I never learned to love.”

“Tell me,” you say, your voice pleading. You feel lost, alone. “What is to be done?”

He purses his lips, eyes looking inward at some distant past that only he can see. “Whopper,” he says thoughtfully, “but with added bacon.”

You're a young guy, but your tastes are pretty different from the average J Crew, Mad Men, and associated Americana that still seems to be sweeping the under-25 nation. Where do you go for inspiration?

I’ve always been fascinated by video games, comics, sci-fi novels etc. if only for the concept art and character designs. As a kid I bought a huge collection of Miyazaki’s concept art for Nausicaä and was blown away––ten years later I still want to dress like the worm handlers, covered with gold trinkets and crazy armor. And so for me clothing is very much cosplay––I want to be a character from some sprawling space opera or post-apocalyptic adventure. I want to be a worm handler. I wanna look like I own a spaceship. You read a lot of copy about X designer “creating their own universe.” I’d roll my eyes before I realized there’s a lot of truth to that and since then my ideas, purchases, and fits have been more and more focused on defining that universe. It’s corny but at least I’m a little more comfortable wearing the fashunz.

You've been working as your wife’s assistant for several years, yet you’ve never met this guy before. His records show that he's been with the practice for a decade, but that he's had no dental work whatsoever – not even a filling. Strange for a man his age.

“So,” says your wife as she walks in, pulling a mask over her face and picking up her scaler, “just a cleaning today? Or did you have other concerns?”

“A toothache, doctor,” he says. His voice is oddly precise. “I fear my last meal disagreed with me.” His lip twitches, as though he’s told a joke.

“Nice jacket,” she says, and you find that you’re a little jealous. You don’t have a black leather jacket. Maybe you’ll try to pick one out the next time you’re at the mall - but you don’t think you’ve seen one like that before.

He holds his mouth open with perfect stillness. He is very pale - almost translucent in the bright light.

“Well,” says your wife, “I'm not seeing anything concerning. You practically have puppy teeth. As always, you've been doing a great job brushing. Even so, we’ll take some X-rays. Your biting surfaces are unusually fine – you might be grinding in your sleep.”

“This way,” you say, ushering him down the hall, “won’t take a minute.”

He turns to you and smiles by way of reply. His teeth, you think, do indeed look very…sharp.

Although Suspension Point has a rather focused aesthetic I’ve been surprised at how much the store has affected my personal style and (more so) the thought process behind it. The criteria of buying for a store and for oneself are rather distinct (even if the respective aesthetics are similar), but you learn to examine clothes differently in both cases. I’ve gained a greater appreciation of what it really takes for a collection to go from concept, to design, through production, into the store, and finally to the customer.

That said, I certainly have both general and specific preferences in terms of my own aesthetic (in terms of specifics I tend to fidget so I like having a piece with an interesting fabric and/or thoughtful detail to play around with). However, I now try to look whether I can find value in or indeed appropriate a certain concept, silhouette, or detail from what I see even if I don’t have an immediate visceral reaction to that particular piece.